As a rule, they died young.
He began to wonder how a people of the intelligence of these proud white Southerners could endure such a thing as Slavery. Its waste, its extravagance, its burdens were beyond belief.
He laughed when he thought of his mother crying over Uncle Tom's Cabin. Yet a new edition of a hundred thousand copies had just come from the press.
Early Sunday morning Custis asked him to go down to the quarters to see Uncle Ben, the butler, who had not yet resumed his duties. He had sent an urgent message to his young master asking him to be kind enough to call on Sunday. The message was so formal and reserved Custis knew it was of more than usual importance.
They found the old man superintending a special breakfast of fried fish for two little boys, neatly served at a table with spotless cloth. Robbie and his friend, John Doyle, were eating the fish they had caught with Uncle Ben the day before. They were as happy as kings and talked of fish and fishing with the unction of veteran sportsmen.
The greeting to Custis was profound in its courtesy and reverence. He was the first born of the great house. He was, therefore, the prospective head of the estate. Jeffersonian Democrats had long ago abolished the old English law of primogeniture. But the idea was in the blood of the Virginia planter. The servants caught it as quickly as they caught the other English traits of love of home, family, kin, the cult of leisure, the habit of Church, the love of country. It was not an accident that the decisions of the courts of the Old South were quoted by English barristers and accepted by English judges as law. The Common Law of England was the law of Southern Seaboard States. It always had been and it is to-day.
"How is you dis mornin', Marse Custis?" Ben asked with a stately bow.
"Fine, Uncle Ben. I hope you're better?"
"Des tolerble, sah, des tolerble—" he paused and bowed to Phil. "An' dis is you' school-mate at Wes' Pint, dey tells me about?"
"Yes, Uncle," Phil answered.